


Home Time

by concernedlily



Series: Home Truths [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Time, M/M, past Keith/Adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 11:34:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15629868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: Shiro misses the Castle for a lot of reasons, but the room for a little privacy wasn’t one he’d fully appreciated before now.





	Home Time

**Author's Note:**

> Getting in just under the wire for s7! I suggest reading the previous story for the fullest picture.

Shiro misses the Castle for a lot of reasons, but the room for a little privacy wasn’t one he’d fully appreciated before now. 

He’s not about to do anything with Keith under Krolia’s eye (approving though it seems to be). The one time they try to sneak off together on-planet is almost amazing: Shiro manages to touch Keith’s dick for the first time, lightly, palming the hard shape of it under Keith’s pants, Keith arching against him… and apparently feeling so good that Black feels the need to fly herself to come check on her wayward pilot, which is about equal parts gratifying and horrifying, and takes out half of the beautiful forest glade they’d found for themselves. 

“You’d think she’d know!” Keith grouches, furiously embarrassed. “Zarkon was _married_.”

He goes red after, sneaking a glance at Shiro like he thinks he’s said too much, and Shiro reaches for his hand, smiling in spite of himself. He’d seen that firmly in his future, once, a happy marriage with the man he loves; he does again. 

“Maybe she did us a favour,” he says, and reels Keith in for a kiss, cupping his face, before showing Keith the red, itchy marks on his hand. “I think we were sitting in poison oak.”

Keith steps in for a hug and Shiro relaxes into the feeling of Keith’s arms wrapped tight around him. “I just want to be alone with you,” he says forlornly and Shiro strokes down his back, feels up his neat little ass and presses his thigh against the firm bulge of Keith’s cock.

“We’ll get there,” he promises. 

***

Shiro doesn’t really mind it. Things are still new: he wakes every morning and his first thought is _hey, I can touch Keith now_ , and then he does. Shiro, Keith, and 200 pounds of space wolf is a lot to fit into the little bunks but they more than manage, mostly because it’s an excuse to sleep tangled up together, as close as they can possibly be. Keith likes to sleep with his face tucked in between Shiro’s shoulderblades, as many arms and legs as he can get wrapped around him; Shiro rests better than he has for years in Keith’s arms, waking refreshed in time to get up before Krolia emerges from the tiny store cupboard they’d repurposed as her bedroom. 

Ever since they stepped onto the blue lion Shiro’s spent most of his time either working or thinking about working, but Keith has changed all that: Shiro can’t wait until they can indulge in a lazy morning in bed, lounging together for hours, nothing on the books apart from enjoying one another. It’s a sweet, simple dream: he wants Keith every minute of the day, but he’s willing to wait for this last step. Neither of them need it to be all in, and they spend so much of their lives just reacting to the next fight, the next threat, the next universe-ending crisis, that the luxury of anticipation has its own charms.

He links his fingers with Keith’s lax ones on his hip and devotes himself to thinking about that while Keith stirs behind him, slow to wake as he usually is without deathly peril to motivate him.

Keith’s hair sweeps across his back as Keith raises his head and says, “Hey,” blearily, and that’s Shiro’s cue to roll onto his back and rearrange them, Keith’s head resting heavy and comfortable on Shiro’s chest with Shiro’s arm wrapped snugly around him. Routine, he thinks contentedly: that had always been something he liked about being in a long-term relationship, a safe haven at home so he could go out and do what he needed in the world, and having it with Keith, with everything else they have to deal with, is especially worth treasuring.

Keith draws lazy designs on his stomach, his fingertips delicate and warm, giving Shiro pleasant shivers. It’s something he does fairly often, seeming to enjoy the casual intimacy, and it takes Shiro a few minutes to recognise the Blades symbol. He’d used to see it on Keith’s notes at the Garrison; at the time he’d assumed it was just a random shape Keith was used to doodling and it had taken a while to notice it wasn’t something he did when he was bored, only when he was anxious.

“You okay?” he says.

“Yeah,” Keith says, but the deep sigh he makes after seems to suggest otherwise. Shiro stays quiet, stroking Keith’s hair, and eventually Keith says, “What happens when we get back to Earth?”

The question brings Shiro back to his train of thought from before and he nudges Keith’s head up until his mouth is in range for a slow kiss. Keith’s response is wholehearted, and it’s only when Shiro pulls away and tries to share a conspiratorial smile with him that he realises Keith’s head is somewhere much more serious.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Keith twines one ankle between Shiro’s, as if he wants to be close from toes to top, and it makes Shiro melt; Keith is so unselfconscious about needing him and he knows it shouldn’t make him so happy but it does.

“Just… what’s going to happen,” he says again. “Once we get back.”

“The Garrison will agree to help,” Shiro says. He’d never got anywhere close to the real decision-making there, but he’d met most of the senior brass by the time they’d launched for Kerberos: they don’t always do things in what he thinks is the best way, but he has no doubt that everyone there wants to do the right thing. “It might take a while, getting people down there to understand, but they’ll get there. It’ll be good for the team to have some downtime.”

“Pidge was joking around the other day and she said probably her mom would ground her,” Keith says. “And then she looked like she just realised she wasn’t joking! And Lance and Hunk are so excited to see their families. What if… you think anyone’s thinking about staying?”

He keeps running his fingers through Keith’s hair, soothing himself as much as Keith, scratches at his scalp a little because Keith is working himself up, his body going stiff in Shiro’s arms, and scritches make Keith’s eyes go heavy-lidded and relaxed. 

Keith isn’t saying anything Shiro hasn’t thought of: he’s had countless sleepless nights about having brought _kids_ into this warzone, especially once he’d realised how important Voltron is and the lions’ ability to reject pilots they don’t care for, that it might be an irreversible choice. They’d almost let Pidge go; his… the Shiro then had let Keith work with the Blades. It’s not impossible that Pidge and the boys might want to stay. He says, “The point of going back to Earth is to rebuild the Castle of Lions. It’s to carry _on_ the fight. They know that. But…”

“Being on a team means people have to want to be there?” Keith says quietly.

Shiro kisses the top of his head. “Yeah. If anyone decides to stay, Voltron will carry on. It’s going to be okay, Keith.”

Keith kisses him, unexpectedly hard and hot. Shiro is just getting over the surprise to kiss him back and then the wolf teleports explosively out of Krolia’s bedroom, bounding over to Keith with endless joy at a new day. That means Krolia will be out any minute and so they’re disentangling themselves, trying to preserve the polite fiction of a completely chaste relationship that’s pretty much the only thing that lets them all share a living space as small as that of the black lion, and the discussion falls away.

***

He stares at Keith’s door for a minute, blearily: it’s been a damn long day, and while the lions have perfect Earth-level gravity and there’s no discernible difference between where he was this morning and where he is now every movement still feels heavy, like the unsteadiness of stepping off a ship onto dry land. It’s the dissonance, he thinks, the shabby door of a Garrison dorm, once so familiar, somehow now feeling like the alien land.

The door opens and he steps automatically into Keith’s arms. “You have to use the handle,” Keith says wryly into his ear. “Krolia forgot about them too.”

Shiro makes a grumbling noise back, but mainly he closes his eyes and lets himself be held for a minute. Keith is the same as always, warm and solid, the only north star Shiro needs.

“You did well today,” he says quietly, once they’re cuddled on the bed together. Unlike Black’s enclosed bunks where they can somehow manage Shiro, Keith, and the wolf, the narrow Garrison beds are exposed and alarmingly rickety. By mutual, silent agreement they’ve ended up with Keith just lying on top of Shiro, whose shoulders stretch across pretty much the whole bed just on their own, but he doesn’t have much faith one or both of them isn’t going to end up dumped on the floor overnight. They’ve already had to banish the wolf down there, much to her disgust.

“You think?” Keith mumbles. He’s so tired too, after a day when Shiro had bitten back his instinct to step in and help, and just watched, alight with pride, as Keith had negotiated Iverson down from clapping the lions in chains and Krolia, Allura and Coran into laboratories right through having the whole Voltron team treated with diplomatic respect, and only yelled a couple of times. And, okay, there’d been some desire, too; watching Keith be good at things has always been amazing, and mixing it with attraction has made it even better. 

He’s too exhausted to take advantage of having some real privacy for the first time ever, though, and it looks like Keith is too. They manage some sloppy making out, but he can’t really blame Keith when he falls asleep between one kiss and another.

He pulls the sheets tighter around them, hoping that maybe a blanket burrito will stop them falling out of bed in the middle of the night, and shuts his eyes.

***

“Isn’t that Keith’s room?” Lance says suspiciously the next morning.

Well, it’s about time the team figured it out. He says, “Yeah,” and steps out into the hall. Keith looks guarded as he comes out after him and Shiro reaches for his hand, meeting Lance’s gaze placidly. 

“You and Keith?” Lance shrieks. “What? Since when? What?!”

“Since forever?” Hunk says. “Wake up, man.”

“Yeah, but not really until that desert planet,” Pidge says behind them. “Seriously, Lance, they were obvious from space. Like, literally.”

Lance splutters. “Get it together,” Keith says to him witheringly, although he’s gripping Shiro’s fingers tight.

“We’re very happy for you both,” Allura says. She does look happy, giving them both a wide, generous smile. 

“Thank you, Princess,” Shiro says, trying not to blush, and really trying hard not to see Coran and Hunk exchanging gac behind her. 

And that’s that.

***

The Garrison is good at keeping things out of the press, but nothing stops the enthusiastic working of the compound’s gossip circuit and five hundred-foot-high metal lions are pretty hard to hide, so the note isn’t that much of a surprise. It’s short, simple, but not without feeling: Adam has heard he’s back and hopes he’s well, Adam has some of his personal things that nobody was sure what to do with when he went missing, Adam can send them on or Adam would like to meet up if Takashi would be interested in that.

It’s extremely fair: Adam always was. It was one of the things Shiro loved about him, that Adam was a calming, balancing influence on him when Shiro was driving forward as far and fast as he could. Untril Shiro had gone further than Adam could follow him, and it had been what had broken them, in the end.

He admits on his third draft that his return note is going to be stiff. He’s sending it, that’s what matters.

***

Adam offers his hand, and Shiro is the one to pull him into a hug. It’s short and warm, and the only thing it stirs in Shiro is a lingering fondness. He’ll always be grateful for the time they spent together, but he has no doubt at all that his future is elsewhere. With Voltron; with Keith.

“Takashi,” Adam says, when they separate, and gives a small, awkward laugh, his gaze at Shiro’s right shoulder and the space beneath. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Shiro says easily. “Wow, I haven’t heard that in a while. I’m mostly going by Shiro now.”

Adam’s eyes sharpen for a moment, and then he gives a tiny nod, accepting it. He says, “Please, pull up a desk.”

Shiro sits gingerly on a chair meant for a still-growing teenager. The classroom is regimentally neat. “You’re teaching full-time now?”

“Computational navigation and starfield dynamics,” Adam says. “Although I understand you’re throwing the whole curriculum in the air.”

Not personally, but yeah, Earth is going to need to update some if they want to have a hope of humanity ever truly being a space-faring race like the ones Shiro’s met. Pidge and Hunk have been spending every hour with Coran and the scientists, led by Sam Holt, and engineers at the Garrison, while Keith fights with Iverson and Admiral Sanda about Galra tactics and Shiro and Allura have endless circular discussions with the politicians that have popped up, sweating in the desert with professional smiles and wild eyes.

“I think you might need a few new textbooks, yeah,” he says.

“You’re looking well,” Adam says. A break-up and a couple of years apart haven’t been enough for Shiro to forget how he sounds when he doesn’t mean something; his gaze is on Shiro’s hair, now, his lips thin.

Shiro doesn’t respond, waits for Adam to look back at him; holds his gaze until Adam shifts uncomfortably. “You can say I told you so,” he says. “It was dangerous. You were right.”

That startles another rusty laugh out of Adam. “Not for the reasons I thought, though. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, Shiro. I’m sorry.”

He’d thought he’d prepared himself for the conversation, but he suddenly can’t bear a rehash of the whole thing again, even if Adam is in a conciliatory mood. This, being able to be cordial and respect what they’d once had, is enough. Shiro shrugs. “It’s worked out okay.”

Adam was always good at hearing the unspoken parts of a conversation; it’s part of why he’s a good teacher. He says in a deliberately lighter tone, “So I hear. The machines are… lions, right? I’d love to see one.”

“I’m not one of their pilots any more,” Shiro says simply. “Keith’s their leader. You’d have to ask him.”

“It’s true then,” Adam says, raising his eyebrows.

Shiro half-smiles. “Rumour mill let you down?”

“No, I heard, but…” Adam makes an eloquent gesture. “It made sense that Hero Pilot Takashi Shirogane would come miraculously home with some space superweapon, but… Keith?”

“He’s not the kid you remember,” Shiro says sharply. It’s true in a literal sense - Keith is two years older than anyone here could reasonably know to expect - but he can’t stop himself from stepping heavy on the _kid_ , and Adam flushes slowly as he grasps what Shiro is saying.

“He - fuck. He told you?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says, choosing to ignore that it had only been a few weeks ago. “What the hell did you think you were doing? He needed _help_. You knew I was all he had.”

“I tried!” Adam said. “I tried to pull him aside a couple of times after - just after. And I was the only one who spoke up for him when they said they were throwing him out. He was his own worst enemy, you know that.”

That’s a surprise, and Shiro can’t help it showing.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says quietly. “For… all of it. It was unexpected. Overemotional.”

“I don’t need to know,” Shiro says quickly. He’d had quite enough of the pictures of how it might have been intruding into his thoughts: he doesn’t need to know for sure, and if he does, he’s getting it from Keith.

“Are you…?” Adam says. He sees too much by far, but then, nobody knows better what Shiro looks like when he’s deeply in love.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. “It’s new, but…”

“Not for him, I think,” Adam says. “I’m happy for you. It sounds like you needed each other out there.”

He manages to sound sincere this time, and Shiro smiles and gets up. “Thank you. And… you?”

Adam nods. “Rafa Grand. In the Physics lab? He’s very excited by your Coran, not that I understand everything he tells me about why. We’ve been living together a few months now.”

“I’m glad,” Shiro says. The hug this time is easier, reminiscent; he breathes in the scent of Adam’s hair for a moment and allows himself to wonder about an easier life, the one where he never went to Kerberos, was never captured by the Galra, never knew what it was to fly the black lion or look around a heaving, cheering arena and know that he’d played a part in saving so many lives.

“I’ll see you around?” Adam says.

“Probably,” Shiro says. He lifts the box of his stuff onto his hip; he’ll go through it later, figure out what’s worth taking up precious space on Black. “We’re pretty busy.”

Adam smiles ruefully. “Goodbye, Shiro.”

“Bye, Adam.”

***

Pidge had passed out communicators at their last stop, specifically designed to block Earth-tech interception. Shiro approves: it’s paranoid, but there are a lot of people out to get them. She’d been proved devastatingly correct the last time she’d taken precautions. 

In any case, it’s slightly overkill for Keith to use the old codeword for their Garrison hiding place, but Shiro appreciates the nostalgic gesture.

He can’t see Keith at first, but he’ll be behind the vents, the warmest spot, with amazing views across the wide quiet desert, the endless star-filled horizon. The Garrison roof makes weird noises in different places than it used to as Shiro makes his way across it.

Keith is leaning against the vents, soaking up the heat in the chill of the night, a blanket under him and another one over his knees. Shiro has a sudden, vivid, adorable image of Keith in the black lion’s pilot’s chair with a knitted blanket over his knees and he’s involuntarily smiling for more than one reason when he says, “Hi.” Keith leans into his side as soon as he sits down, totally natural and unselfconscious, and Shiro puts his arm around him and basks.

“What a fucking day,” Keith says. “Fucking Iversen.”

“Did he strap you down to a table?” Shiro teases and that surprises a laugh out of Keith.

“Nah. I forgot I still had to pay him back for that.” There’s a gleam in Keith’s eyes when Shiro looks down at him and he leans down for a quick kiss, touched at the idea of Keith wanting to avenge him in some way, even if it’s probably not the best move for what they’re trying to do.

“Tomorrow,” he says. “Look what I got today.”

“Your grandfather’s telescope,” Keith says, surprised. Shiro hands it over and Keith runs his fingers over it with the pleasure of familiarity as well as the beauty of the Japanese antique. “I haven’t seen this for a while.”

“I met up with Adam, I guess the Garrison figured he was the best one to take my personal stuff,” Shiro says. He makes it as flat and gentle as possible: he knows it’s still a sore subject for Keith but he doesn’t want anything like that between them, no lingering poisons that might spread through the new turn in their relationship and ruin it.

Keith cranes his head to look up at him and Shiro strokes his shoulder. He looks back down at the telescope. Keith’s grown but his hands are still slim and elegant, and watching his long fingers handle his granddad’s telescope delicately, nimbly, makes Shiro dry-mouthed in a way that feels vaguely wrong. “It was nice of him to keep it,” he says.

“Mmm,” Shiro says. “I guess he felt like he ought to.”

Keith takes a deep breath and Shiro pulls him in closer to his side, runs his hand down Keith’s side to settle on his hip, unmistakably intimate.

“How is he?” Keith says, doubtfully, like he read about etiquette in a book once.

“Fine,” Shiro says. “He’s fine. He’s happy. He has a good life here. Mad you’re messing up his textbooks.”

“Good,” Keith says, with a petulant, possessive vindictiveness that Shiro really shouldn’t be finding attractive, and Shiro leans down for another kiss. This one is lingering and dirty, trying to say all the things he needs to, that Adam is a treasured past but Keith is a longed-for future.

The kissing turns hot fast. They’re back at the Garrison on the most serious business possible, but it will always be the place where Shiro grew up: it reminds him of being a teenager and he lets that show in the way he kisses Keith, messy and excited and a little desperate, the goosebumps rising on his skin a reaction to more than just the arid, chill air.

He’s conscious too that Keith never got the first time he should’ve had, like the exploratory and giggly one Shiro’d had with a classmate he still remembers fondly; Keith probably hasn’t even had sex since that disaster. Of course, technically Shiro’s never had sex in this body. He feels the most firmly _himself_ inhabiting the clone he has yet, Keith’s mouth on the corner of his and scattering kisses along his jawline centring him more than anything else could.

“Okay?” Keith murmurs, noses at Shiro’s throat. Shiro has a wistful moment of wondering about his half-Galran senses, how he experiences sex; he has a vague recollection of helping Keith fly Black to the team, how they’d joined minds on the astral plane with a single purpose, but he doesn’t remember how it _felt_ and they’ll never be that close again.

The physical will have to do, then. “More than okay,” he says and lies back, ignoring the weirdly gravelly roof, pulling Keith over him and their mouths back together. 

“Hey,” Keith says, and Shiro is so in love with the filthy smirk Keith gives him. “My mom’s not in the next room.”

Shiro starts to say, “We’re not in a room, we’re on -” and Keith swallows the end of his teasing in an intent, open-mouthed kiss. It’s so easy to lose himself in Keith’s hands on him and Shiro lets himself: just for now, there’s no universe but Keith, and he gives himself to the moment.

There’s no caution in the way Keith kisses him now, nothing held back, and Shiro feels like the first time he watched Keith race full-throttle over the cliff on his hoverbike, heart in his mouth, until Keith had risen, triumphant and wild, coming straight back to Shiro for approval and affection. Keith is hot against him, brilliantly vibrant and touchable, and Shiro wraps his arm around Keith’s waist, his fingers finding bare skin between Keith’s pants and Garrison-issued shirt and stroking.

“Come on,” Keith mumbles, and much as he hates to have even an inch between them Shiro lets him pull back to drag his t-shirt over his head, following that by eagerly stripping Shiro of his, Shiro holding himself up for it in a crunch significantly more fun than doing calisthenics in the cramped ass of a lion, flinging them somewhere in a move they’ll probably regret later if they don’t want to stroll bare-chested down the Garrison corridors.

He’s not vain - or not any more, anyway - and it’s preferable that his body is more or less like the one he remembers, not wiped dark-magic clean, but he can’t help the shameful little thought that it would be nice not to be quite so scarred. They don’t bother him usually, they just are; he’s neither proud of them or dislikes them, but he isn’t so forgotten to passion that he doesn’t want to be enjoyed. It’s stupid, Keith’s seen him with his shirt off so many times, but not like this, not with the eyes of a new lover. He leans in to kiss the tempting hollow between Keith’s collarbones, their chests skimming together damp with sweat.

“Shiro,” Keith says, sitting up astride Shiro in a suggestive way that makes his mouth go dry, the bulge of his cock bumping against Keith’s tight little ass. He slips his hands over Shiro’s shoulders, along his sides, up to his face, and Keith brings his chin up. Shiro can’t not look at him then, can’t bring himself to be caught trying to hide, and he blinks up at Keith. “You’re gorgeous,” Keith says fervently, and that’s - Keith’s learned to keep his mouth shut when he has to, finally, but he doesn’t pander. If he didn’t mean that he just wouldn’t say it. Keith plants his hands on Shiro’s pecs and runs them down slowly over Shiro’s stomach, the slow drag of his fingertips making Shiro shiver, gazing at his hands on Shiro’s skin. Shiro is surprised to realise that what he’d always assumed was a trick of the light is actually the Galra in Keith coming out with the strength of his feeling, tinting his irises purple.

“Come here,” Shiro says softly and they’re kissing again, panting deep kisses, rubbing up against each other unco-ordinated and so good, at the top curve of the rollercoaster and ready to ride.

“What do you want?” he says, when they’re basically just licking at each other’s mouths, a little disgraceful and a lot right. All Shiro’s ever wanted is someone to match him, and Keith does and more, surpasses him, and knowing Keith is as deep in it as he is makes him almost dizzy.

Keith swallows and stands up and Shiro follows him, helplessly, sitting up and not letting them lose contact as Keith shoves his pants and boxers down and kicks them off, exposing himself every way a man can. “I want you to fuck me,” Keith says, a nice match for his old jacket from his cheeks to his chest to his cock, hard and big and leaking.

“Sure, just -” Shiro says, distracted, and he leans forward and takes it in his mouth.

It’s been a long time since he’s sucked cock. He’d always enjoyed it, even taken pride in having developed a certain amount of technical excellence, and it’s even better when it’s Keith’s dick sliding heavy over his tongue, Keith’s knees trembling from how good Shiro is making him feel, Keith letting out shocked groans above him as he pushes his fingers into Shiro’s hair.

Keith is flatteringly easy. Shiro is just getting back into the swing of things and starting to pull out some tricks, working the soft head of Keith’s cock elaborately and bringing his hand up to play with his balls, when Keith’s cock stiffens even further in his mouth. Shiro switches his hand to the shaft, letting Keith fuck his fist in the last moments before he comes over Shiro’s tongue, making a low cry that goes straight into Shiro’s hottest fantasies and takes up residence.

Keith’s knees do give out then, collapsing him into Shiro’s lap, and Shiro puts his arm around him and holds him as close as he can. Keith’s breath is ragged and he’s clinging around Shiro’s shoulders and the tenderness of the moment makes Shiro warm all over.

“God,” Keith says, leaning in for a kiss, and Shiro chuckles at his affronted face when he tastes himself in Shiro’s mouth. “Fuck. That was… _fuck_. I didn’t… was that okay?”

“You’re perfect,” Shiro murmurs. Keith gives him a drunk-looking, nervous smile, gropes for his pants on the floor, and then he’s pressing something into Shiro’s hand and Shiro looks down to find a tube of lube.

“You ask someone for this?” he asks, charmed by the idea of Keith planning for them. It’s abruptly real, something they’re going to do _right now_ , and his cock throbs. He reaches down to undo his pants, pull himself out; Keith is spread over Shiro’s hips, his thighs parted, obscenely hot, and when he cups Keith’s cock on the way down he’s already getting hard again.

Keith shakes his head, strands of hair brushing Shiro’s neck, and says, “Borrowed it when they weren’t looking.”

“Yeah?” Shiro says. He presses his forehead to Keith’s and Keith tilts up to suck gently on Shiro’s cupid’s bow. Keith had found a flip top; he gets some on his fingers, rubs them to feel the slipperiness. “I thought maybe we’d keep it.”

He’d used to enjoy this, as well. Opening up his partner, seeing their reactions before he was too lost in his own pleasure. It doesn’t go as easily as it used to. Even when he’d had the Galra arm, there’d been things he’d preferred to learn to do with his left; this hadn’t been one of them, and he flushes as Keith tries to hide a wince of pain as Shiro presses too hard at him.

“Sorry,” he mutters, hides his face in Keith’s shoulder.

He feels the brush of Keith’s hair against his cheek, then his lips. “It’s okay,” Keith whispers, and Shiro feels Keith’s fingers next to his, clever and clearly practiced at finding their way inside.

“You do this?” he says, blinking up at Keith, and Keith smiles, intent on his own pleasure, beautiful.

“I was hoping,” he says, raw honesty that makes Shiro grip his hip hard and tilt his face up for a greedy kiss. Keith hoping - waiting - for him; he should feel guilty about it, but Keith’s faith in him is overwhelming. He can’t think about it usually, it’s too big, but now he kisses Keith and looks straight at the reality that Keith loves him enough to drag him back from death, over and over. It’s terrifying, and amazing, and Shiro doesn’t know how the hell he earned such devotion, or how he’s ever going to be worthy of it.

“I love you,” he says, the only thing he has to offer in return. “Keith, I love you.”

Keith makes a soft noise, pitched somewhere between anguish and desire, and Shiro is watching his face the first time Keith takes his cock. 

He sinks down slowly, experimentally, and Shiro bites his lip to stay still, not to fuck up into him the way his body is screaming for. Keith is almost hot inside, silky and tight, and their locked gaze turning molten with need goes straight to his dick.

“Jesus,” Keith says when he’s filled, his ass resting on Shiro’s thighs and Shiro trying not to go cross-eyed with how good it feels. “Jesus Christ.” 

He’s gleaming with sweat and Shiro leans up to lick the pearls of it off his cheekbone. “Are you okay?” he says, slightly pathetically. Keith is clenching around him and Shiro is fizzing with it, pleasure pooling in his hips and chasing fire up his spine. They’re pressed together tight but when Keith takes a deep breath, his hole fluttering around Shiro, and leans down for a kiss he can slip his hand in between them, pressing Keith’s cock between his palm and the ridge of his abs, and Keith moans into his mouth, relaxing on him. 

“I wanna -“ Keith says, always determined to throw himself in, and Shiro says, “ _Yeah_ , God, please,” as Keith raises himself a little, a little further, lowers himself down again, twitches his hips, makes Shiro see stars, starts to ride. 

Time dissolves. Nothing is important but being _inside Keith_ , Keith moving on him, filling his vision against the wide dark sky. Shiro can’t help saying things, stupid honeyed things that make Keith smile like he can’t believe they’re here, until Shiro has to be kissing him, wants Keith’s mouth on his while he comes, his brain dizzying out with the strength of his climax, gasping through the silver-sharp aftershocks of Keith frantically using him to his own tipping point. 

He bangs his head on the roof, he flops back so quickly. He knows they have a warm and comfortable bed inside, but Shiro can’t move yet. Keith is on his chest, his breath coming explosively hard, his arms wrapped tight around Shiro’s neck. Shiro’s skin is damp where Keith’s eyes are: it could be sweat, but if Keith came hard enough to cry Shiro will take that too. 

He drags one of the blankets over them enough to keep the chill off and strokes Keith’s back, gently, sweeping caresses occasionally down far enough to slide gently over where Keith is still soft and wet, dipping a fingertip inside and feeling how it makes Keith shake against him.

Eventually post-sex languor takes over and they just lie together, Keith resting quietly against him, Shiro’s lips on his temple, tasting the salt warmth of his skin. “I love you too,” Keith says, almost lost in Shiro’s skin. “I don’t know if you -”

“I remember,” Shiro says, and Keith lifts his head enough to press his lips to Shiro’s shoulder, just above the metal cuff.

He hasn’t felt this good in years. An absence of pain, a break from duty, no immediate threat; and Keith satisfied and sleepy in Shiro’s embrace, happy. Shiro did that. He closes his eyes and lets himself drift. 

***

When he opens them, they’re still tangled but Keith has slid off to his side and is idly playing with the telescope. He smiles when he notices Shiro watching him, a wondering tender little curve of his lips Shiro’s never seen before, and they kiss softly before Keith draws back.

“What’re you looking at, babe?” he says drowsily. It’s odd to realise he’s finding the idea of stargazing Earth’s constellations exciting. They’d never gotten boring to him, but they had been work. He can’t remember the last time he’d pulled out his grandfather’s telescope, before the mission.

“The Milky Way,” Keith says.

“We should visit,” Shiro murmurs. His eyes want to flutter closed again: he really needs to get them up and go to bed. He wants to keep the afterglow as long as he can. Waking up aching from sex with Keith is appealing; waking up aching from sleeping on a damn roof is not.

“Yeah?” Keith says, and the odd tentativeness of his voice wakes Shiro up better than anything else could. “You’re… you wanna be back up there?”

“Of course I do,” Shiro says, feeling suddenly much more awake. “I can’t wait.”

“You’re staying with Voltron?” Keith blurts, and now his tone is something Shiro recognises: the anger that means Keith is asking about something that matters very, very much to him, and is afraid he’s not going to get.

“ _Yes_ ,” Shiro says. “Keith, _what_? I’m staying. Lion or not, there’s plenty to do if we’re gonna win this war. I’m there as long as you guys want me. I’m with _you_ as long as you want me.”

Keith is scrambling onto him, hugging him painfully tight, and he closes his eyes and returns it as hard as he can. 

“I can’t do this without you,” Keith says. 

It’s not true. Without Shiro, Keith got the black lion to accept him, became one of the Blades’ most trusted agents, shot through a dying wormhole to save someone who’d betrayed him. Keith doesn’t need Shiro to succeed, but Shiro needs to be there when he does, the way he always knew Keith could, wants to be the one Keith comes home to after. 

“We’re gonna get this done,” he says, kisses Keith again when he raises his face to Shiro.

Keith hesitates while they’re getting dressed, automatically helping Shiro to pull his t-shirt back over his head and pausing with his hands flat on Shiro’s chest. Shiro gazes at him and pushes his hair away from his face. He just wants to be touching Keith all the time, and he’s never complaining if it’s mutual. 

“You wanna go sleep in Black?” Keith says. 

Shiro laughs and kisses him. “You know, I really do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I will be crying about the new stuff on [tumblr](http://concernedlily.tumblr.com).


End file.
